In the days and weeks to come, Trayvon Martin would be remembered as an easygoing young man who had simply gone to the store for some candy and a drink. And George Zimmerman would go into hiding, amid hundreds of death threats against him and his family. Both would become rhetorical devices in the heated, never-ending national disagreements about race and guns.

All that lay ahead. For now, the neighborhood watch coordinator stood under the bright sun that had replaced the previous night’s obscuring rain and told his side of a two-sided story about standing ground, and losing it.

Both would become rhetorical devices in the heated, never-ending national disagreements about race and guns....

Thanks to the NYT for stepping back and observing that rather than operating as a participant in the use and exploitation of these 2 unfortunate men.

IN THE COMMENTS: Jay says:

The NYT and the "outraged" race hustlers have done nothing but try to exploit this incident to further thier agenda's. They are now "backing down" or at least back pedaling, because the available facts are really not supporting the narrative...

In another two weeks the NYT will start reprinting Saint Trayvon's ganksta wannabe tweets in an effort to solidify the Hispanic vote for Obama...

I'm complimenting the NYT for doing the right thing now, but I acknowledge — and thought about this as I wrote the original post — that it may have ulterior motives along these lines.

IN THE COMMENTS 2: rhhardin said:

It's the "there is no truth" copout when it goes against them.

Tully said:

The NYT walkback is strong evidence of a losing narrative. They don't abandon their cherished narratives easily. If they thought continuing the narrative would be helpful rather than hurtful to the liberal cause, they would still be running it on page one with daily assorted op-eds.

PatCA said:

I think the motive for the Times is that the lies from the media have been so egregious that even they are ashamed.

The only thing the race grifters and the house organs of the democratic party have insured is that if Zimmerman were charged with a murder or manslaughter charge he will never get tried in Florida because any half competent defense lawyer will argue there is no venue in Florida that he could receive a fair trail.

The best antidote to all this would have been if the mayor of Sanford had overruled the lawyers and ordered the police department to release everything they had on the incident when the story first broke.

"The best antidote to all this would have been if the mayor of Sanford had overruled the lawyers and ordered the police department to release everything they had on the incident when the story first broke."

-- That's a great way to encourage the witnesses who talked to the police. They are staying anonymous because they know that being known is bad. Heck, just having the same last name as Zimmerman gets your address tweeted and death threats.

There's no need for witnesses to have to go public, and there's now a witness saying he saw Zimmerman the next day bandaged up.

But at his death, Martin was 17 years old, around 6 feet tall and, according to his family's attorney, about 140 pounds.

Zimmerman, 28, is best known from a 7-year-old booking photo of an apparently heavyset figure with an imposing stare, pierced ear and facial hair, the orange collar of his jail uniform visible. The picture, released by police following the deadly shooting, was taken after Zimmerman's 2005 arrest on an assault-on-an-officer charge that was eventually dropped.

In a police video made public this week of Zimmerman being brought in for questioning a half-hour after the shooting, the 5-foot-9 man appears much slimmer.

More & more failure of the narrative:

Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin.

"I saw George. He was banged up. His head had two big bandages, that weren't flat, had a bump on them," the neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said.

He described where the injuries were.

"I seen him have a big bandage on his nose and his nose swollen. On the side, where his eyes were at, it was swollen," he said.

I don't know enough about global warming to make an informed judgement. I do know that its proponents oversell their case and act with blatant hypocrisy. Something similar is going on with this case. I don't know if Zimmerman is 100% innocent, but there is no reason to believe that he is a racist or that Trayvon was killed simply because he was black. The tactics that are being used to demonize Zimmerman and his familly are far worse than any prosecutorial lapses in the investigation.....Perhaps Trayvon profiled Zimmerman as a flabby Hispanic who had no business getting his face and needed a beat down. That's just as likely as Zimmerman profiling Trayvon, but no sane person would ever say that aloud on television.

There is no need to release witnesses names, and in any case, I was thinking more of the (unedited) 911 and surveillance tapes, the EMT treatment report (which we still have not seen, the actual locations and timeline, etc.

Steve Sailer had an interesting, Thomas Wolfe-esque take on this. He imagined putting Trayvon's girlfriend on the stand and under cross-examination getting her to admit that Trayvon confronted Zimmerman because he felt sexually threatened by the man following him down a dark street. It's just as plausible as any other theory given that we know of the disdain in the African-American community for homosexuals.

Both would become rhetorical devices in the heated, never-ending national disagreements about race and guns....

This is the same type of "logic" used to suspend both students for fighting when one of them was attacked unprovoked and was defending himself.

This is the CLASSIC "Moral Equivalence" argument of the leftwinger.

It is used to excuse the true offenders, the afro-vigilante crowd and their self-hating white enablers, from being solely in the wrong in fomenting violence against a person, solely because of the color of his skin.

NOTHING is said by any of these racist assholes about the vastly greater number of black kids killed by other black kids. EVER. EVER!

They can go fuck themselves.

Its Civility Bullshit on Ice and Stilts, with a Sparkler jammed up its ass.

I don't think everyone there got the memo:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/a-native-caste-society.html?_r=1&src=rechp

A study released in 2006 by Duke University on attitudes on race in Durham, N.C., a city with one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the country, found that an overwhelming majority of Latinos — 78 percent — felt they had the most in common with whites, while 53 percent of them felt they had the least in common with blacks.

Someone is trying to drive a wedge. It remains to be seen if they'll continue to do so.

My guess is that Ms. Althouse is not reading the Dead Tree version of the Times; if she were, she would have no doubt that the Times is dialing it back.

They include a column by Bill Keller ruminating about hate crimes, the Rutgers suicide, and Trayvon Martin. He mentions Spike Lee's Tweeting of a Zimmerman address as a sign of how things are spinning out of control.

And in the Business Section, David Carr talks about how social media have the Trayvon case spinning out of control. This leads to the second reporting by the Times of the Spike Lee incident.

m stone, I'm not claiming anything other than that it has been reported that two voice print experts are stating that in their judgement that is not George Zimmerman calling for help on one particular 911 call. I am making no other claims. The only additional claim ONE of the experts reportedly makes is that it is Trayvon Martin calling for help. As I pointed out, that is merely an inference and not a conclusive call on his part.

Wow, the stupid is really out in force on this topic. edutcher, why do you think I mentioned a trial? Might it be so that evidence could be examined, challenged and judged on its merits in a court room?

My broader point is that not all the evidence is out, nor has it all been examined thoroughly (ABC News finally got arouind to admitting what anyone with any sense already knew, which was that their grainy surveillance video was grainy!) and certianly none of it has been brought before a court in a trial setting. In other words, rushing to judge George Zimmerman innocent is as stupid as rushing to judge him guilty.

yes, and the eyewitness was also in the dark, in the rain and possibly didn't know one man's voice from another. Did the eyewitness know either of these two men before this? Eyewitness testimony has been known to fail, too.

I actually don't have an opinion on who was calling for help. I am merely pointing out that there is some dispute.

We have Zimmerman stating that he was calling for help.

We have Martin's father claiming it was his son's voice calling for help. (And this story in itself is clouded by a dispute between Martin's father and the Sanford PD.)

We have an eyewitness who claims that it was Zimmerman calling for help.

We have audio experts, at least one of who has put at least one person in jail for murder by his testimony, who claim it cannot be Zimmerman's voice calling for help.

In other words, it is a matter of contention.

And has anyone conclusively proved that it is only one person calling for help? Could both people involved (or even a third party) be on the tape? How would you prove that? The use of voice experts?

The NYT is also backing off of the 'White Hispanic' label. Now George is just Hispanic.

The writer also seems pretty aghast at Stand Your Ground, an 'assertive' law that makes it 'harder for prosecutors to make arrests' etc. This is followed by examples of how Stand Your Ground has failed; it 'needs a second look.' No examples given of how Stand Your Ground saved lives, or saved someone from being a crime victim. Just sit tight and wait for Nurse Bloomberg to save the day.

You know, it is possible to talk about this matter without getting into the vices or virtues of either the deceased Mr. Martin or the surviving Mr. Zimmerman.

The actual case should be dealt with with deliberation and fairness; which as some have observed, is what the parents of Mr. Martin seem to be saying.

Meanwhile there is a circus going on all around this. We can't talk about that? We can't call out the bad actors there?

The behavior of the media is typical; they stir things up according to a predictable narrative, then try to clean their skirts. Down the road, watch them claim with the usual unctuousness, how fair and penetrating their coverage really was.

The President's conduct I cannot praise.

The conduct of Revs. Jackson and Sharpton I find difficult to describe adequately and politely. They need to go home and shut up.

A point our president could make but chooses not to make.

The President might also have made the point that the rest of us--including him--do not know the facts, cannot and should not attempt to judge the situation from afar, through the lens of emotion.

In his statement, icepick said 2 experts said the cry for help was not Zimmerman's (something he's been pushing here). The last gasp, it would seem, of the Zimmerman Is A Murderer crowd.

As I said, "experts" have often disagreed or have been shown to be wrong.

He said nothing about a trial until his second comment when he assumes the "young man" is Martin.

Well, at least he caught himself saying something dumb and tried to recover, but, given he's the one who snarked, "The facts are still coming in, as are the opinions of experts, real and imagined", he'd do well to moderate himself.

traditional guy wrote: Rialby...the coverup that he Martins related included no police calling them until the next day and still saying their son was a John Doe body for three days.

From an Orlando Sentinel story trying to separate fact from fiction:

The Volusia County Medical Examiner refused to release Trayvon's body to his family for three days, an unusually long wait.

Not true, according to the medical examiner. It picked up the body at the scene just after 10 p.m. Feb. 26 and notified a Fort Lauderdale funeral home 39 hours later that the body was ready. The funeral home, Roy Mizell and Kurtz, did not pick up the body for an additional 24 hours, the medical examiner reported.

Volusia County spokesman David Byron said it would be impossible to find out the average length of time the medical examiner there keeps bodies, but said it can vary by several days, depending on circumstances — for example, if there's a dispute among family members about what to do.

Shiloh will come in here pointing out that the very act of protesting NBC's malicious behavior is racism. In fact, Ann's continued posting about this topic is just chum for the hillbillies, right-wing circle jerk.

Rialby...the coverup that he Martins related included no police calling them until the next day and still saying their son was a John Doe body for three days.

Really? Because according to the Neighborhood Notification the police put out the day after the shooting, they identified the body, the morning after the shooting. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that it took until the next morning to locate someone who could identify the body of someone who didn’t normally live in the area where the shooting took place.

That's in a court of law, Shit-for-brains. Or do you think that the Althouse comment section is a legally seated jury with jurisdiction over Sanford Florida? And most of you seem willing to judge Martin guilty of at least assault when that hasn't been proven either.

The NYT walkback is strong evidence of a losing narrative. They don't abandon their cherished narratives easily. If they thought continuing the narrative would be helpful rather than hurtful to the liberal cause, they would still be running it on page one with daily assorted op-eds.

traditionalguy said...Rialby...the coverup that he Martins related included no police calling them until the next day and still saying their son was a John Doe body for three days.

Um, the police came to see Martin with a photo of his son when Mr. Martin called them the next day to report his son missing.From the New York Times:Early next morning, no sign of Trayvon, still. Mr. Martin called his son’s cellphone, which again went to voice mail. He then repeatedly called the cousin until he answered, only to share the distressing news that he had not seen Trayvon.

Now it was Mr. Martin calling 911. He reported that his son was missing, and then described what his son was wearing. Soon he was outside, meeting a couple of responding police officers. One of them took out a photograph of a body from a folder.

You silly little liar.

Your "John Doe" assertion is laughable, given that Treyvon Martin was identified by his father by 10am the morning after the shooting.

"Meanwhile there is a circus going on all around this. We can't talk about that? We can't call out the bad actors there?"

Talking about the media is not a moral problem. It's substantially different from smearing people. I don't understand why people not involved in the investigation are so sure they know what happened that night.

But talking about the media phenomenon is completely different then, say, talking about the kid and his tweets.

Wrong. They claim its only a 48% match. Which makes sense, because to do a reliable voice analysis, you need to get the subject to provide his voice saying the same thing you are testing against and in the same pitch. Which your "experts" didn't do.

Also, you MSM source used TWELVE experts and only gave print to two. Guess why?

those "experts" would not have any credibility to testify in court on this case. Note:

The software compared that audio to Zimmerman's voice [presumably from the Zimerman 911 call]. It returned a 48 percent match. Owen said to reach a positive match with audio of this quality, he'd expect higher than 90 percent.

"As a result of that, you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that it's not Zimmerman," Owen says, stressing that he cannot confirm the voice as Trayvon's, because he didn't have a sample of the teen's voice to compare.

I believe a 48% "match" (whatever that is) isn't really a good standard a prosecutor would want to present to a jury...

This walkback was a lot faster than the debacle at Duke. Which means that the whole country is used to the lies of the MSM and is virtually certain when all of the top media outlets produce another one of their RGC melodramas that the narrative is completely incongruent with the facts on the ground. I don't read the NYT or follow its beer picnics as I haven't got time to keep up with that sleazy organization whose motto should be, "Any noose that fits."

Reporter Matt Gutman said the clearer video shows “what appear to be a pair of gashes or welts on George Zimmerman’s head.”

If Gutman had let his fingers do the walking for him before he made an ass out of himself and furthered the "guilty of racist murder" narrative with the claim there was no injury, he would have found, (as I have mentioned before) a Sanford Police Department report **which had already been posted on the internet** that indicated a police officer observed Zimmerman's back was wet with grass marks and the Sanford Fire Rescue paramedic/EMT treated Zimmerman's bleeding nose and head at the site of the altercation that night.

I make no claim to know what happened in the altercation / death but facts are facts and turning opinion into news, making up sh*t to fill broadcast time -- if it isn't a crime, sure is a sin.

This whole thing is showing me how racism goes out in America eventually becoming so splendidly blended. The Hispanic guy with a German last name. Oops. You don't know the the race of anybody so just give up already.

The Asian-looking guy with the southern accent isn't all that unusual so that comic routine loses its edge. I notice a number of the nationality signs have dropped from the lists but I still use those signs, what, are they too graphic or just absurd? Japanese is j flicked at the eye. Incidentally, I don't get the thing for Korea. What does that refer to? When you say North Korea it looks funny because the n goes up slowly and then fast down tap tap, and when I tap my head and cheekbone with my fingertips like that, don't tell anybody this, but, the sound I hear inside is hollow.

I want to mock, keep racism alive it's all you got, but that's not all the race hustlers have. I think the carve-outs eventually go, hey, I've been carved out for special attention and the other political side doesn't seem to care that much about me specifically. Attempts are made to carve me out from three different angles that I see, and I'm not having it but that's me going against the current and I feel the current shifting. I look at it as someone trying to fit in with the norms, as I read you, and this not caring about me specifically helps in that effort, but that is still just me and there is much greater blending beyond myself fitting in, even people who went with the carve out currents, like Hispanic guys with German last names.

We, the public. You know, the citizens of this nation? As for me, I am interested in is deciding what the truth of the matter is. (Well, that and avoiding race riots, as I'd be in the immediate cross-hairs.)

But I do love that you are slandering me as a race-baiter and Democrat (that last even worse than being called a Republican)for my beliefs that (a) we don't know all the facts yet, (b) those "facts" still have to be interpretted, and (c) perhaps rushing to judgement either way is a bad thing.

And if you had been paying any kind of attention at all you would see that I have pointed out problems with the stories both sides (those that care that Zimmerman is guilty no matter what versus those that care that Zimmerman is innocent no matter what) are telling.

But you have joined the Sharptons of the world in insisting that the truth can only be, MUST only be, what you want it to be, and even asking a question about the matter at hand is seen as evil.

A production like that involves around a dozen media staff, up and down the chain of command. It was not an "accident".

Okay, Fen, where did I claim ABC News made an honest mistake? I stated that they admitted what everyone already knew, which was grainy video is grainy video.

I actually did something I swore I'd never do two or three weeks back, and created a Twitter account. I did so solely to tweet Gutman that an earlier story he had done contained three factual errors in the first three paragraphs of his story. Last I checked he had never bothered to make any corrections. So don't act like I'm am some naive type buying the media spin.

I am writing what I mean, and only what I mean. Stating that two experts claim that it isn't Zimmerman's voice calling for help means that I am passing along that two experts claim that it isn't Zimmerman's voice calling for help. In fact, if you were to infere anything it would be that I found their claims at least worthy of some suspiscion.

Similarly with the ABC News video case.

When did the Althouse commentariat get so fucking stupid that they interprete anything that isn't a "ME TOO!" as complete and total disagreement on everything?

Okay, Fen, where did I claim ABC News made an honest mistake? I stated that they admitted what everyone already knew, which was grainy video is grainy video.

You minimized their fraud. You implied it was a "oh gosh we made a silly mistake" error.

And don't pretend you're only here to get to the truth. Your "defense" of Zimmerman has been lesser than your defense of Martin by several degrees. You're not as clever as you think. And your audience isn't as stupid as you believe.

I am passing along that two experts claim that it isn't Zimmerman's voice calling for help. In fact, if you were to infere anything it would be that I found their claims at least worthy of some suspiscion

Bullshit.

1) you left out the fact they claim a 48% match

2) you pretend they didn't go "expert" shopping. They consulted 12 experts and only printed 2. Do you think that's informative.

3) you ignored responses by actual voice rec experts that state you need the subject to supply a scripted audio very similar in verbage and tone to your test materail in order to get an accurate analysis.

If you were actually trying to get at the truth, your arguments defending Zimmerman wouldn't be so feeble. And you wouldn't be censoring information that conflicts with the narrative you want.

And you wouldn't give a rat's ass what I thought about your credibility.

The new meme is that this is all about guns. Biden gave it away the other day. Mexico's problem is US made guns. Sure it is. And Biden's father was a poor coal miner, just like Neal KInnock's father was. Oh it WAS Neal Kinnock's father ! And Biden went to expensive prep school.

Icepick said...Wow, the stupid is really out in force on this topic. edutcher, why do you think I mentioned a trial? Might it be so that evidence could be examined, challenged and judged on its merits in a court room?

The "expert" opinion you cited is not evidence, and as presented is utterly inadmissible. These aren't experts. They are publicity seekers and perhaps worse. They can not possibly have applied a methodology that would result in admissible evidence.

Your backtracking while bobbing and weaving is unconvincing. You clearly were making the point that this is a meaningful development. In fact it is nothing.

I found that article far more fair and even-handed than anything I have seen in the MSM. Most of the coverage has been utterly racist. Just seeing the humanity of George Zimmerman is a huge step up for the NYT.

The case seems like a classic misunderstanding. Zimmerman is suspicious of Martin. "What's this guy doing? Why is walking up to the houses?" And Martin is suspicious of Zimmerman. "Why is this guy following me? Now he's chasing after me!"

I can totally see a young man respond with violence out of fear and aggression.

It seems to me also that this case utterly depends on how serious the injuries to Zimmerman were. To respond with deadly force, you have to be attacked with deadly force.

You're not allowed to shoot somebody because he punched you in the nose. Even if he sits on top of you and beats you, you're not allowed to kill him.

I think it's entirely possible that George Zimmerman used excessive force.

"A witness heard the shot and looked back up from his 911 call to see the heavy set hispanic man getting off the skinny teen's face down body."

Zimmerman was first reported by the media to weigh 220 pounds, which was backed up somewhat by the 7-year old booking photo they published of him. It is now known that he actually weighs only 170 pounds. That completely changes the whole perception, doesn't it?

...a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:(1) He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm

776.032 Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force.—(1)

A person who uses force as permitted in s. 776.01 , ...is justified in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force,...

(2) A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful.

He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm

Great bodily harm is a broader definition than deadly force. I think it would include rape, for instance. Or say somebody is trying to stab your eye out, or cripple you for life.

What Martin did to Zimmerman was simple assault. I used to prosecute them all the time. You can't use deadly force to protect yourself from simple assault. Not in the common law, not in the statute you cite, not in any case I've ever read or heard about.

I know of numerous cases where people died from one punch or one push.

If someone is slamming your head on concrete, that is clearly a threat to your life.

It's too bad you can't sign a contract saying I get one free punch and nothing would happen to me. I'd ask for your address and see how much damage I could do with one punch. You might be surprised...then again, you might not wake up.

Because you think having your head repeatedly slammed into the concrete = simple assault. Seriously, call up any ER and ask them what damage is done to those attacked this way.

And because you wrongly claimed (@7:42 PM) that "to respond with deadly force, you have to be attacked with deadly force" when a simple google of the statute would have shown you a "reasonable belief of great bodily harm" also allows you to respond with deadly force.

Even reading between the lines of your recent posts, it looks as if you aren't certain, ie. "I think it's entirely possible that George Zimmerman used excessive force."

St croix in the State fo florida the definition of grievous bodilyharm includes the use of any weapon which can cause1)a wound requiring sutures to close3)any broken bone-which includes sidewalks.Yes an unarmed man canbe convicted of murder for slamming someone's head against the ground.

Sorry idiot operating this keyboard but GBH also includes extended unconsciousness.And if you were charging simple assault for people slamming their heads into the sidewalk you were seriously undercharging.And where did i receive my knowledge of this.In numerous firearms and law enforcement defensive tactics course over the last twenty years.